JUST LIKE TO-DAY - IT WAS A TUESDAY

YOUR MOTHER NEVER KNEW

ARMENTIERES - THE BATTLEFIELD _ GERMAN BUNDESARCHIV PHOTOGRAPH


On this cold and cloudy Aussie morning
I recall that other 14th May, ........95 years ago,
and on the other side of the world:

IT WAS A TUESDAY, WASN’T IT BILLY? JUST LIKE TO-DAY

                 - TUESDAY, 14TH MAY, 1918

Private James William“BILLY”Wilson   Service No. 5659

17TH Battalion, Australian Imperial Force

KILLED IN ACTION Near / Armentieres FRANCE In the course of repelling the German Forces, whose attempt to reach the Sea had already failed.

Did you know it was Tuesday, or in that Hell around Armentieres, blasted to Kingdom Come for miles and miles - did you really care what day it was?

THE ICONIC AUSTRALIAN SLOUCH HAT

They didn’t tell your Mum how you died - blown to pieces by a German shell blast .But your Superior Officer took the trouble to tell my Grandma and Grandad – your Sister Louisa (“doll’s eyes” you called her) and her German husband Ted .

Louisa was distraught at losing her only brother. She loved you so much. In due course, the Army provided your Mother with a Certificate of Burial for which Ted made an ornate carved wooden frame with all the flags of the Allies around its edges. (I guess he inherited that skill from his Grandfather Carl Dopmeyer whose sculpture and wood carving gained him fame in Germany in the second half of the 1800’s.

We don’t seem to have a photo of you Billy, which is strange for your time. But we know a little about you:

You enlisted on 16th November, 1915. You were said to be 27 years old and 3 months, of dark complexion weighing 119 lbs. and 5 Feet 3 ½ “in height. So you were a little bloke by Aussie standards but true to your English born parents’ physique. You had no distinguishing marks on your body. You were a Laborer.

But what’s this? You were Discharged just over a month later on 22nd December, 1915. Because you had insufficient teeth to masticate!

17th Battalion A.I.F. (AUSTRALIAN  IMPERIAL FORCE) COLOUR PATCH

But you can’t keep a good bloke down, and on 24th February, 1916 you enlist again! By now you have a “Fresh” complexion, Brown eyes, Brown Hair, your height is the same but at 27 years and 6 months you weigh in at 116lbs And you have acquired a scar at your Right eye, on your Right thigh and inside your Right knee. Did this happen during your initial enlistment? An accident? All the injury was on your right side and the inclusion of a scar behind your right knee doesn’t sound like a fight!

Whatever the case, the lack of teeth , (stated to have occurred over the 10 preceding years due to cavities)– perhaps you had obtained dentures (?)- did not stop you being accepted again.

You appear to have been buried initially at Fouilloy and later exhumed and re-interred at the great Australian War Cemetery at Villers- Bretonneux.

"

The sun shining down on these green fields of France

The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance

   The trenches have vanished long under the plow
    
    No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now    
    But here in this graveyard that's still no mans land
    The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
    
    To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
    And a whole generation were butchered and damned
      Did they beat the drums slowly ?
      Did they play the fife lowly ?
      Did they sound the death march, as they lowered you down? ?
      Did the band play the last post and chorus ?
      Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest ?

     (The Green Fields of France - Eric Bogle)

The Australian War Memorial at Villers Bretonneux

On 4 th February, 1919 your Mother received from the Army your personal effects – you know how pitifully few and pathetic they were. You had made your Mother your Next of Kin because your Father had died previously.

 

CONCLUSION

I’m sorry Billy, that I haven’t yet got more information about you and the War you fought, but I am on the job and will set the record straight as best I can.I do now have your official Army records in facsimile. I am still striving to locate a photograph!

You and your comrades, who already went through Hell on earth in France, are in my daily prayers for the repose of your Souls. And we who live our lives to-day are forever grateful to you.

 

A BOUQUET OF MOTHERS

SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2012

A BOUQUET OF MOTHERS

My Dad's Mum - Eleanor Margaret "Mag"Dixon - taken 1911

My dear wife Robyn,with our  three children : Marianne, Justine and Matthew at Mount Wilson - Autumn  1980 (?)

My dear Mum Elsie Georgina Beckmann (R) and her Mum Louisa Beckmann (Standing) with Grandad Edward Beckmann and sisters Charlotte (L) and Ernestine "Kate" (centre) in 1910 - 1911

Our daughter Justine with 2 mths premature son Daniel (born 1st June, 2009) now a charmer & picture of robust  good health

Here I am surrounded by a pictorial  bouquet of Mothers !( I think "bouquet"is a suitable collective noun for a group of Mothers!) Each one of them I have had the privilege and joy to share my life with, and each one has been a remarkable example of love and kindness in action, even in the gravest difficulty. The pictures are in no particular order. Obviously the first Mother I knew was my very own dear Mum,who led a life of self- sacrifice , love and loyalty in the most adverse circumstances.Her love was generous and kind, never in the least demanding. She was the ideal example of her Father's philosophy that love and respect go hand in hand : if you have not got love you will show no respect, if you show no respect, you have no love. Grandad hit the nail on the head, and my dear Mum had absorbed the lesson and lived it out.

 Next I got to know my Grandma Dixon who lived on the next block one street behind us. Hers was also a tough life coping with a difficult husband and who gave herself to helping many human strays in the family orbit. She was very loving in her treatment of me and in early primary school days I used to walk home via Grandma's place, where she would always be seated on the verandah - waiting for me with a One Shilling piece( with its Merino Sheep Head image on it) clutched in her hand which she gave to me for treats. I can still recall its warmth from her hand, to-day.

My Mum's Mother, Grandma Beckmann, was a very special lady too. She was more self - confident and outgoing within the family group than my Mum or Grandma Dixon and her love was open-hearted and generous, her hugs big and strong. She was totally devoted to her husband "Ted"Edward Beckmann and in the family circle she would refer to him as "Daddy"( they had 9 children!). When I knew him his health was failing, and though she would firmly proclaim that "Daddy and I are going to live on into the (Biblical) Millenium", looking back ,I can see her anxiety that he was slipping away. She was a wonderful example of love and affection and that ,constant and reliable.She had had a tough life with never a lot of money around , and when some windfall occurred an adverse development would sweep it away. She suffered a lot for marrying a  "German" especially in World War I as did the older girls, reproached for being "Germans".I recall her unconditional love of me ,and those strong, generous hugs to-day.And, as she lay close to death in Hospital  , I can recall her calling out "Mummy" - my Grandmother, at the end of her life - calling out for Her Mother!

Then we come to the full colour Mums. My dear wife Robyn and those three beautiful children, what fun we had that day in the bracing air and rich autumn tones of Mount Wilson! What fun we have had over all the years - and how much of that is due to Robyn , loving loyal, devoted wife and Mother. I guess we have had more good times than all the predecessor Mothers and their families combined and yet we have had a ton of tough times, but Robyn has been a constant source of love and loyalty through thick and thin, and even thinner!No - one could ask for a better Wife or ,the children, a better Mother.

The latest Mother in the family blood line is our dear daughter Justine, Mother to Emily, Christopher and Daniel. Words nearly fail me (nearly! I always have a few left!) As parents we could not be prouder of this thoroughly modern Mother. She is an exemplary model of love and devotion in effective action , handling even the strain of tiny Daniel's birth when this tiny literal handful of life seemed to us too fragile , she brought him to the fullness of healthy life with dedication and love, without skipping a beat in the care of Emily and Christopher and husband Paul.And like her paternal Grandmother she is a stalwart strength for her parents.

So Mothers of mine, I salute you and honour you , but most of all, I love you unfailingly.

TWENTY ONE TO-DAY - BUT NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT EXPECT

JOHN JOSEPH DIXON (L of Photo) around 1911
WITH HIS MOTHER, ALBERT (R)
AND BABY BROTHER BILL WHOM DAD GREATLY ADMIRED

To-day ,Saturday 11th May, 2013 is the Twenty First Anniversary of my Father's death just three weeks short of his 85th Birthday. He survived the death of my Mother by almost 21 years .

Sent to work at age 11 years in a metal foundry, he had a pretty tough life.

HERE, IN 1927 DAD LOOKS LIKE THE TYPICAL YOUNG BANKER OR CIVIL SERVANT
WHICH HE WAS NOT, HE ALWAYS WORKED IN BLUE COLLAR OCCUPATIONS

His life experience together with his local social network, made him a lifelong Labor Party voter. He persevered in this even after he said he was convinced that the Labor Party was riddled with Communists whom he despised - he just could not bring himself to desert the "working class party". And in fact he did see the world and the nation in those Victorian era Class terms.

My Dad was born a Catholic and educated in a Convent School, but for long periods did not practise his religion. Yet when his "kind eyes"won the heart of Miss Elsie Georgina Beckmann a petite and beautiful,modest girl from a devout Evangelical Protestant family , he required that they be properly married in the Catholic Church. Miss Beckmann was instructed in the Faith and duly became a Catholic, and they were married in 1927.

To-day's cynicism might suggest that he was being hypocritical. But in those days people were honest about doing wrong  - he knew it was wrong not to practise his religion, but he also knew that there are absolutes of such importance that you don't abuse them : he would not betray his Religion, even if he did not practise it - that Truth was bound to him for life.

When I was born, Dad was 32 years old ,he was never unkind to me, but not outgoing or physically demonstrative of his love. ( The Poet James Macauley writes powerfully of his own Father's inability to physically express any affection.) He worked on the construction of the great Garden Island Graving Dock, for the Navy. This was a protected employment category, which stopped him being sent on labour battalions to Darwin when he received the call-up. He could not be in the regular forces because of faulty eyesight resulting from an accident at the Foundry when he was about 13 yrs old.

As I grew up, all my interests were largely alien to my Dad except Politics, and even then we were on opposite sides of the fence!Only after many years did  I hear that Dad was very proud of my progress in Banking  and in other areas and used to regale his regular drinking mates at the hotel in Lidcombe with my latest efforts. We almost never got to talk at any length on  any subject , conversation being limited to brief exchanges of statements never pressed too far lest the heavy crunch of disagreement should wreck things.

Dad worked hard all through his life, and for most of my life after the War, he worked in the hot dirty atmosphere of Potts Hill Water Pumping Station , which he rode to and from on a bicycle in light and dark ( for he was a shift worker) and in summer heat and driving rain.It was about a twenty minutes bike ride each way.

In my twenties and thirties , I could of course, perceive all my Father's faults with clinical efficiency, whilst making every allowance for any tendency  to deficiency on my part. As the years went by my Dad evolved, particularly after he came to see the devastating effect on my Mum's fragile mental health following a Hysterectomy. He came to see in time how cruel was the effect of stubborn,sullen silences - sometimes lasting 3 days - over some exaggerated "offence"on someone so vulnerable. He was transformed.

He also returned to the practise of the Faith which was very pleasing to see and took great delight in his three grandchildren, Marianne, Justine and Matthew and never ceased urging me to look after my wife!

But still he could not freely and easily communicate either emotions or ideas.Whether or not this disability stemmed from the treatment he received from his brutish and drunkard Father, I cannot say for sure, but if I were a betting man......

Dad's later years were plagued by troubles with his heart - suffering from an "enlarged heart"which caused recurring build-ups of fluid around the heart, these required repeated hospitalisation to relieve them but there could be no cure.

In fact he had just successfully completed one such routine and was about to be released when he suffered a heart attack and died. The Catholic Chaplain to the Auburn Hospital where Dad died was quickly on the spot to minister to  his poor body and pray for his soul. His name was Father Stephen Swift and I was most impressed by the card he left endorsed with all that needed to be done to ensure a proper Catholic burial - for he knew nothing of the family.

We were living in Brisbane at the time and I received a call from my Brother Pat telling me of Dad's death and saying that the Hospital  wanted to perform an autopsy. I was on the first plane down next morning and went straight to see the Doctor in Charge -  a young Asian gent. He was prompt to offer condolences and almost as prompt to proffer a form authorising an autopsy for signature. When I objected that they clearly knew the cause of death, and that  this was unnecessary, the form quickly disappeared into the pocket of his white coat. I informed him that after the long periods of my Dad's health problems, I did not want his body used for training purposes. This is a matter which I believe the Hospital handled very badly to say the least.

1947 WITH MY DAD IN PITT STREET SYDNEY

So John Joseph "Jack"Dixon I love you dearly and hope we have the opportunity to understand each other far better in Paradise.My prayers for the repose of your soul and of Mum's are daily made, because time is irrelevant in eternity.